87% of Venezuelans living in Miami prepares to vote in Louisiana

Pedro Mena, executive director of opposition Unified Democratic Panel (MUD) in Miami, State of Florida, is certain that 87% of Venezuelan residents in Miami will head for the Consulate of New Orleans to cast their ballot in the presidential election of next October 7. For this reason, the decision made by the National Electoral Council (CNE) on the relocation to that site will not prevent them from voting.

"The government knows we are going to vote. If (Venezuelan independence hero Simón) Bolívar had the courage to cross Andes horseback riding, so we will make it: on a bus, onboard a plane, whatever, we will vote," he promised.

On Monday evening, the CNE opted to relocate 20,000 Venezuelan residents in Miami to the Consulate of New Orleans, State of Louisiana, given that the Miami Consulate has been closed since January 13, 2012.

In the meantime, Mena remembered that the CNE board of directors still has to study a request for reconsideration made by a group of Venezuelan residents in Miami some days ago.

Big effort

For Ramón José Medina, the MUD deputy secretary, the decision to transfer more than 20,000 voters from Miami to New Orleans indicates that the government advantage ahead of the election is not so real.

"Following the ratification of the CNE move, Medina reported that MUD representatives in Miami will take steps to drive the voters to New Orleans.

For its part, NGO Súmate remembered that it had proposed the CNE the possibility of opening a polling station in Miami in a formal request on Monday 25.